Sarah
The main ideas in this chapter are proper class instruction, variance in teaching styles, and what makes up a successful teacher. In order to make sure that students can learn the material, the content must be clear. One of the biggest characteristics of a successful teacher is for the teacher to know the needs of the each of their students. Determining readiness level and being able to adapt lessons,assignments, etc for all readiness levels goes along with knowing the needs of your students.
Synthesis
Sarah
Most of the class talked about the importance of teachers knowing the needs or their students and about readiness level along with it. Being able to determine what level every student is on was one of the big ideas that most people got out of this chapter. The other big point that a lot of people talked about is the fact that education is a two-way street. As teachers we need to accept responsibility for our students' success. One thing that went along with this that was important to everyone was that as teachers we need to care about our students. What makes this a two-way street is that not only do we need to be responsible and care, but students also need to care and take responsibility for their successes.
Cory
The major idea I got out of this chapter is that teachers need to have clarity. If a teacher has little to no clarity, then students will not understand what they are trying to teach. If a teacher can’t teach, then they are failing their students at their major role. The most important part of this chapter in my opinion is the section where it names the nine attitudes and skills of a teacher. The two most important of those two is that a teacher needs to accept responsibility for their learner’s success, but the learner also needs to accept responsibility for their learning as well. It forms a partnership where the teacher and student must work together to further the student’s educational success. I’ve always thought that education is a two-way street, both the teacher and the students have to care and want to learn. The teacher, in my opinion, should foster a student’s willingness and want to learn and provide the tools they need to learn. These tools aren’t always the same for all students, so teachers need to be ready to offer various ways to teach. A student should then be ready and willing to accept what a teacher has to offer. Students should work to foster their desire to learn with the help of their teachers. If one side of this relationship doesn’t care, then the whole thing will fall apart. In the future, I want to be the teacher that gives every student a chance. I can’t rely on other teacher’s explanations of students; I need to find my own opinion of them.
Lydia
To be a responsive and effective teacher I must know the needs of all of my students. I must also be flexible and not give up on a student that is struggling with a certain concept in my content. This will affect my classroom because I must find levels of work that reach all students however I cannot give some students more than others. I will have to learn how to balance what content I should teach with what level I should teach the content at and help the students that are struggling as well. I have learned that for the more advanced students I should give them an assignment that extends their knowledge and challenges them at the same time. I have also learned that no matter the level of skill each stage should take up the same amount of time for each student. Something that I thought was interesting, and I thought would benefit my class would be once I give a student a project or put them in a group that I believe matches their readiness level I would have everyone share what they have learned from the assignment. By doing this I would gauge their knowledge of the topic at the end and let students see what their peers have done for work. I have learned that if I put students in groups I could go around and help the groups that aren’t quite getting it. This would affect me because I would learn how to be an active person in a student’s life, and I could learn to adjust the way I teach if something is not working the way I thought it would.
Sarah
Some of the main points I got out of this chapter is that learning has more to do with a student’s ability to use skills to address problems than with retaining data. I also learned that to teach for understanding is to provide an intellectual diet that yields thoughtful, capable, and confident learners and therefore citizens. The book said “the more powerful the curriculum the greater the possibilities for the classroom, the teacher, and the students. One of the things that impacted me the most from this chapter is that in order to be an effective teacher, I must continually attend to the quality of the curriculum and instruction. This was discussed in Dr. Theresa’s class when we talked about PCK. The chapter introduced the idea that if a student isn’t growing then the teacher isn’t teaching that student. This statement will greatly impact my philosophy of teaching. I feel like a lot of teachers blame the students for not learning but the idea that is the teacher’s fault that the child isn’t growing will impact the individual attention that I give to the growth of my students. At the end of the chapter three questions were asked that will greatly impact me as a teacher and therefore my classroom. The three questions were: Do we have the will and skill to accept the responsibility for the diverse individuals we teach? Do we have a vision of the power of high-quality learning to help young people build lives? Are we willing to do the work of building bridges of possibility between what we teach and the diverse learners we teach? I feel I can be a good and responsive teacher if every day I can answer these three questions with a confident yes.
Dominick
Clarity of content is vital when teaching students. The content that you are teaching must be clearly articulated to students for them to fully understand what is being taught. If you as the teacher are not clear about what is being taught how can you expect your students to clearly understand what is being taught? The curriculum is supposed to stimulate the material, it should not bore the students with repetitive, unimportant details. The curriculum has to be well thought out in order for the student to get intrigued by it. Then the teacher must also help in showing the student how to become skilled and get them to buy into the process of learning. Every teacher wants to make their classroom better, if they don’t then they are not doing their job. There is point A, which is where the teacher is currently, then there is point B where the teacher wants to be. Teachers must also make sure that there is equality throughout the classroom. Just because one student may already be well versed in the content that the teacher is going over that does not mean that students should advance farther than everyone else. Also, students who struggle with the subject should not be given less material. Everyone in the class is equal and the students should feel that in their classroom environment. Helping students making a connection with the material also helps. If students can establish a connection to the material then they will be more likely to get interested in it, thereby causing them to do better in the class.
Cheyenne
This chapter does a really good job of highlighting how many teachers will fail at making their curriculums more accessible to everyone. I think it’s important to show the rights and the wrongs as well, because many readers and future teachers can remember a teacher in their past who unfortunately did things in a way they shouldn’t have. For instance, I know teachers whose plan for when students got too far ahead or completed their work early was to just give them more idle work. He never made any attempts to move them to a slightly more challenging level, he just continued to give them busy work. Likewise, I knew a teacher who would give struggling students less work and even a completely different test instead of trying to figure out why they weren’t understanding the material. This kind of thinking results in neglect for both sides, and can often times lead to students missing the overall point of a unit, or missing out on understanding it further. The chapter also highlights the idea that it is the teacher’s responsibility for learner success. Every student is capable of learning and understanding the material, and it is up to the teacher to be able to reach each and every student. If someone is struggling, it is the teacher’s responsibility to find out what the issue is and to attempt to solve the problem. While it is the student’s responsibility to try their best to understand the material, you cannot expect them to continue struggling with something they are clearly not understanding as is. Teachers must work with them to find a different route to understanding for the student.
Katelin
This chapter discussed various questions I have had for awhile. Mainly, how do I create an environment where my students are engaged and interested in a subject that many may hate already? I want to create “thoughtful, capable, confident learners” and as much as I want to think that I will just know how to do that, it was nice to see tips in each to do so. One was that the more of a range of strategies that is used to teach, the more the full range of students are engaged because you are accommodating to them. In addition, I really also want to be the teacher that can help students to be successful in life, not just math, and this sort of touched on that for me. We are not only teaching them, but we are here to “coach for success” and help them. We are here to try to figure out who they are and get in their heads to help them. Give them goals and help them create their own to really learn and have them realize they can do it. Another aspect I really want is a respectful environment where students are comfortable to speak and not be distracted by the people, just focus on the material. A positive learning community would be ideal, and that goes along with realizing that every student is different and by letting everyone realize that they don’t need to shoot anyone down for that, that different is good and accepted, will help create that environment we all want.
Sara
In chapter four of Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, we are faced with the realization that teachers are not just responsible for teaching students our academic content. We also need to be aware that we are shaping children into adults and teaching them skills and concepts that they will take with them for the rest of their lives. It is our responsibility that we think of them as human beings and not just a number or a statistic. With this concept in mind it becomes easier for teachers to connect with the students and to ensure that they learn the material and understand it. Once this idea is adopted by a teacher they can then start to think about how they will teach different types of students so they will be successful in years to come. One fear that I have had about becoming a teacher is how will I meet standards that I need to, while giving students the supports that they need, while also being fair to each student. One thing I enjoyed in this chapter is that the answer is not to give students who are more advanced more work, and give students that need more support less work. This would only create a huge rift in the classroom and could possibly make students not try as hard to get less work. One solution to this would be instead of giving more or less work, give the same amount but the difficulty can differ. If students all have a worksheet of 20 problems, but with difficulty at their own level, it will ensure that students learn the content knowledge that they need, that they are challenged the right amount, and that they all are doing the same amount of work.
Laura
I think the general take-away point from this chapter emphasizes how important it is to get to know your students and to recognize that your job as a teacher is to do your absolute best to guide them towards success. One part that really stood out to me was the scenario about Mrs. Callison and the notes that she takes on her students. Once I got over considering the possibility that my teachers could have taken notes on me (yikes?) and realized that it’s probably more useful than creepy, I thought to myself, but I want to know my students well enough that I don’t need to refer to a notebook. This generated another fear: the likelihood that I will have so many students coming in and out of my classroom on a daily basis that I may not be able to know them as well as I would like to. Not only do I want to know about the different learning styles of my students so that I can best meet their needs, I also want to know about their family, hobbies, and interests because it will help me to make the curriculum more appealing to them (hopefully). I also think that if I know a lot about my students, they might be encouraged to learn more about each other. The more they know about and respect each other, the better the classroom community. So, while I want to be the best teacher I can be, I also have to understand that it’s not going to be an easy task, and that getting to know my students will take a great deal of time and dedication, and maybe even some note taking.
Shane
This chapter is important to my life because it stresses how important it is to have clear contents. This becomes important because I need to know information about my content area. The chapter also hit the nail on the head about teaching so kids understand not just teaching by spewing out content and hoping kids can parrot it back to us as teachers. As a teacher we should make sure the material is stimulating. If we can stimulate our students minds and make them connect it is going to be easier for them to be motivated to get the work done. Education is often seen as a two way street, but as educators we need to know that most of it falls on our shoulders if we don’t do our job then the kids are not going to be able to do theirs. This is why it is super important for us to have the clearest content possible. I think the part I liked the most about the reading was the fact that we are not going to be perfect. There is going to be a point A and a point B. We start at point A and point B is where we finally hope to end up as educators. We need to stress the big picture for kids. We want the kids to be able to engage and part of this would be giving them something to look forward to and then we can fill in the little details later. The last big concepts I enjoyed reading about were how the “more or less approach” does not work for students and then the 9 attitudes of students also plays a big role in teaching.
Rhi
In the beginning, the book mentions having “few models of how such classrooms would look and little personal experience with the concept”, this makes me thinks back to my high school and middle school days and the type(s) of health classes that I was in. They did not provide me with the proper knowledge I needed about how to have a nutritious diet. That’s something that I will be focusing a lot on in the future because a lot of students don’t know or don’t care about what it means to eat healthy. Having a teacher who cares and models what it means and the importance of keeping your body healthy is crucial when students are growing up so that they can learn early on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle instead of trying to start one as an adult. Also by teaching the students, they can bring what they learn in class back home to their parents and teach them about how to make their home life a healthier one. Helping children to take part in their own success and learning is also another aspect of teaching that I believe is very important. Students need to also be able to know how to find out information for themselves along with being guided by teachers and/or their peers, such as: research projects (individual or group), student led discussions, etc. Making sure the students are getting the information they need is one thing, but there are ways for them to find information and learn other than by word of mouth from their teachers.
Cooper
One of the important takeaways I got from this chapter was the importance of understanding vs knowledge. While knowledge is always important and going to be crucial to an understanding and an intelligence in any content area, understanding proves to be a better indicator of a student’s engagement and overall comprehension of the content. For example a student might know that the United States entered world war 2 in 1941 but it is far more valuable to understand why they entered the war and to make the connections of what events led up to that moment. If we can teach in a way that allows students to make connections rather than just memorize material then the learning of that material will be far more enduring and can be a foundation to build more connections from. For this reason concepts become more important than details, if students spend time memorizing details of the content such as names, dates, etc. then they run the risk of missing or glossing over the take home points of a lesson. Conversely if a student first has an understanding of the big picture or has a conceptual understanding of the lesson then details serve as evidence a student can attach to that concept as a validation of material they understand. One concept I didn’t necessarily agree with was that the “more or less” approach doesn’t work or shouldn’t be employed in the classroom. I’m not sure of the exact way to reach every student in the class and get them all to the same point by the end of the year. I don’t believe the answer is to allow the students who understand the material at mastery level to sit in class and become disengaged because they aren’t challenged by the material and to allow the students who don’t understand to fall behind because they can’t keep up.
Table of Contents
Abstract
SarahThe main ideas in this chapter are proper class instruction, variance in teaching styles, and what makes up a successful teacher. In order to make sure that students can learn the material, the content must be clear. One of the biggest characteristics of a successful teacher is for the teacher to know the needs of the each of their students. Determining readiness level and being able to adapt lessons,assignments, etc for all readiness levels goes along with knowing the needs of your students.
Synthesis
SarahMost of the class talked about the importance of teachers knowing the needs or their students and about readiness level along with it. Being able to determine what level every student is on was one of the big ideas that most people got out of this chapter. The other big point that a lot of people talked about is the fact that education is a two-way street. As teachers we need to accept responsibility for our students' success. One thing that went along with this that was important to everyone was that as teachers we need to care about our students. What makes this a two-way street is that not only do we need to be responsible and care, but students also need to care and take responsibility for their successes.
Cory
The major idea I got out of this chapter is that teachers need to have clarity. If a teacher has little to no clarity, then students will not understand what they are trying to teach. If a teacher can’t teach, then they are failing their students at their major role. The most important part of this chapter in my opinion is the section where it names the nine attitudes and skills of a teacher. The two most important of those two is that a teacher needs to accept responsibility for their learner’s success, but the learner also needs to accept responsibility for their learning as well. It forms a partnership where the teacher and student must work together to further the student’s educational success. I’ve always thought that education is a two-way street, both the teacher and the students have to care and want to learn. The teacher, in my opinion, should foster a student’s willingness and want to learn and provide the tools they need to learn. These tools aren’t always the same for all students, so teachers need to be ready to offer various ways to teach. A student should then be ready and willing to accept what a teacher has to offer. Students should work to foster their desire to learn with the help of their teachers. If one side of this relationship doesn’t care, then the whole thing will fall apart. In the future, I want to be the teacher that gives every student a chance. I can’t rely on other teacher’s explanations of students; I need to find my own opinion of them.Lydia
To be a responsive and effective teacher I must know the needs of all of my students. I must also be flexible and not give up on a student that is struggling with a certain concept in my content. This will affect my classroom because I must find levels of work that reach all students however I cannot give some students more than others. I will have to learn how to balance what content I should teach with what level I should teach the content at and help the students that are struggling as well. I have learned that for the more advanced students I should give them an assignment that extends their knowledge and challenges them at the same time. I have also learned that no matter the level of skill each stage should take up the same amount of time for each student.Something that I thought was interesting, and I thought would benefit my class would be once I give a student a project or put them in a group that I believe matches their readiness level I would have everyone share what they have learned from the assignment. By doing this I would gauge their knowledge of the topic at the end and let students see what their peers have done for work. I have learned that if I put students in groups I could go around and help the groups that aren’t quite getting it. This would affect me because I would learn how to be an active person in a student’s life, and I could learn to adjust the way I teach if something is not working the way I thought it would.
Sarah
Some of the main points I got out of this chapter is that learning has more to do with a student’s ability to use skills to address problems than with retaining data. I also learned that to teach for understanding is to provide an intellectual diet that yields thoughtful, capable, and confident learners and therefore citizens. The book said “the more powerful the curriculum the greater the possibilities for the classroom, the teacher, and the students. One of the things that impacted me the most from this chapter is that in order to be an effective teacher, I must continually attend to the quality of the curriculum and instruction. This was discussed in Dr. Theresa’s class when we talked about PCK. The chapter introduced the idea that if a student isn’t growing then the teacher isn’t teaching that student. This statement will greatly impact my philosophy of teaching. I feel like a lot of teachers blame the students for not learning but the idea that is the teacher’s fault that the child isn’t growing will impact the individual attention that I give to the growth of my students. At the end of the chapter three questions were asked that will greatly impact me as a teacher and therefore my classroom. The three questions were: Do we have the will and skill to accept the responsibility for the diverse individuals we teach? Do we have a vision of the power of high-quality learning to help young people build lives? Are we willing to do the work of building bridges of possibility between what we teach and the diverse learners we teach? I feel I can be a good and responsive teacher if every day I can answer these three questions with a confident yes.Dominick
Clarity of content is vital when teaching students. The content that you are teaching must be clearly articulated to students for them to fully understand what is being taught. If you as the teacher are not clear about what is being taught how can you expect your students to clearly understand what is being taught? The curriculum is supposed to stimulate the material, it should not bore the students with repetitive, unimportant details. The curriculum has to be well thought out in order for the student to get intrigued by it. Then the teacher must also help in showing the student how to become skilled and get them to buy into the process of learning. Every teacher wants to make their classroom better, if they don’t then they are not doing their job. There is point A, which is where the teacher is currently, then there is point B where the teacher wants to be. Teachers must also make sure that there is equality throughout the classroom. Just because one student may already be well versed in the content that the teacher is going over that does not mean that students should advance farther than everyone else. Also, students who struggle with the subject should not be given less material. Everyone in the class is equal and the students should feel that in their classroom environment. Helping students making a connection with the material also helps. If students can establish a connection to the material then they will be more likely to get interested in it, thereby causing them to do better in the class.Cheyenne
This chapter does a really good job of highlighting how many teachers will fail at making their curriculums more accessible to everyone. I think it’s important to show the rights and the wrongs as well, because many readers and future teachers can remember a teacher in their past who unfortunately did things in a way they shouldn’t have. For instance, I know teachers whose plan for when students got too far ahead or completed their work early was to just give them more idle work. He never made any attempts to move them to a slightly more challenging level, he just continued to give them busy work. Likewise, I knew a teacher who would give struggling students less work and even a completely different test instead of trying to figure out why they weren’t understanding the material. This kind of thinking results in neglect for both sides, and can often times lead to students missing the overall point of a unit, or missing out on understanding it further.
The chapter also highlights the idea that it is the teacher’s responsibility for learner success. Every student is capable of learning and understanding the material, and it is up to the teacher to be able to reach each and every student. If someone is struggling, it is the teacher’s responsibility to find out what the issue is and to attempt to solve the problem. While it is the student’s responsibility to try their best to understand the material, you cannot expect them to continue struggling with something they are clearly not understanding as is. Teachers must work with them to find a different route to understanding for the student.
Katelin
This chapter discussed various questions I have had for awhile. Mainly, how do I create an environment where my students are engaged and interested in a subject that many may hate already? I want to create “thoughtful, capable, confident learners” and as much as I want to think that I will just know how to do that, it was nice to see tips in each to do so. One was that the more of a range of strategies that is used to teach, the more the full range of students are engaged because you are accommodating to them. In addition, I really also want to be the teacher that can help students to be successful in life, not just math, and this sort of touched on that for me. We are not only teaching them, but we are here to “coach for success” and help them. We are here to try to figure out who they are and get in their heads to help them. Give them goals and help them create their own to really learn and have them realize they can do it. Another aspect I really want is a respectful environment where students are comfortable to speak and not be distracted by the people, just focus on the material. A positive learning community would be ideal, and that goes along with realizing that every student is different and by letting everyone realize that they don’t need to shoot anyone down for that, that different is good and accepted, will help create that environment we all want.Sara
In chapter four of Integrating Differentiated Instruction & Understanding by Design, we are faced with the realization that teachers are not just responsible for teaching students our academic content. We also need to be aware that we are shaping children into adults and teaching them skills and concepts that they will take with them for the rest of their lives. It is our responsibility that we think of them as human beings and not just a number or a statistic. With this concept in mind it becomes easier for teachers to connect with the students and to ensure that they learn the material and understand it.Once this idea is adopted by a teacher they can then start to think about how they will teach different types of students so they will be successful in years to come. One fear that I have had about becoming a teacher is how will I meet standards that I need to, while giving students the supports that they need, while also being fair to each student. One thing I enjoyed in this chapter is that the answer is not to give students who are more advanced more work, and give students that need more support less work. This would only create a huge rift in the classroom and could possibly make students not try as hard to get less work. One solution to this would be instead of giving more or less work, give the same amount but the difficulty can differ. If students all have a worksheet of 20 problems, but with difficulty at their own level, it will ensure that students learn the content knowledge that they need, that they are challenged the right amount, and that they all are doing the same amount of work.
Laura
I think the general take-away point from this chapter emphasizes how important it is to get to know your students and to recognize that your job as a teacher is to do your absolute best to guide them towards success. One part that really stood out to me was the scenario about Mrs. Callison and the notes that she takes on her students. Once I got over considering the possibility that my teachers could have taken notes on me (yikes?) and realized that it’s probably more useful than creepy, I thought to myself, but I want to know my students well enough that I don’t need to refer to a notebook. This generated another fear: the likelihood that I will have so many students coming in and out of my classroom on a daily basis that I may not be able to know them as well as I would like to. Not only do I want to know about the different learning styles of my students so that I can best meet their needs, I also want to know about their family, hobbies, and interests because it will help me to make the curriculum more appealing to them (hopefully). I also think that if I know a lot about my students, they might be encouraged to learn more about each other. The more they know about and respect each other, the better the classroom community. So, while I want to be the best teacher I can be, I also have to understand that it’s not going to be an easy task, and that getting to know my students will take a great deal of time and dedication, and maybe even some note taking.Shane
This chapter is important to my life because it stresses how important it is to have clear contents. This becomes important because I need to know information about my content area. The chapter also hit the nail on the head about teaching so kids understand not just teaching by spewing out content and hoping kids can parrot it back to us as teachers. As a teacher we should make sure the material is stimulating. If we can stimulate our students minds and make them connect it is going to be easier for them to be motivated to get the work done. Education is often seen as a two way street, but as educators we need to know that most of it falls on our shoulders if we don’t do our job then the kids are not going to be able to do theirs. This is why it is super important for us to have the clearest content possible. I think the part I liked the most about the reading was the fact that we are not going to be perfect. There is going to be a point A and a point B. We start at point A and point B is where we finally hope to end up as educators. We need to stress the big picture for kids. We want the kids to be able to engage and part of this would be giving them something to look forward to and then we can fill in the little details later. The last big concepts I enjoyed reading about were how the “more or less approach” does not work for students and then the 9 attitudes of students also plays a big role in teaching.Rhi
In the beginning, the book mentions having “few models of how such classrooms would look and little personal experience with the concept”, this makes me thinks back to my high school and middle school days and the type(s) of health classes that I was in. They did not provide me with the proper knowledge I needed about how to have a nutritious diet. That’s something that I will be focusing a lot on in the future because a lot of students don’t know or don’t care about what it means to eat healthy. Having a teacher who cares and models what it means and the importance of keeping your body healthy is crucial when students are growing up so that they can learn early on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle instead of trying to start one as an adult. Also by teaching the students, they can bring what they learn in class back home to their parents and teach them about how to make their home life a healthier one. Helping children to take part in their own success and learning is also another aspect of teaching that I believe is very important. Students need to also be able to know how to find out information for themselves along with being guided by teachers and/or their peers, such as: research projects (individual or group), student led discussions, etc. Making sure the students are getting the information they need is one thing, but there are ways for them to find information and learn other than by word of mouth from their teachers.Cooper
One of the important takeaways I got from this chapter was the importance of understanding vs knowledge. While knowledge is always important and going to be crucial to an understanding and an intelligence in any content area, understanding proves to be a better indicator of a student’s engagement and overall comprehension of the content. For example a student might know that the United States entered world war 2 in 1941 but it is far more valuable to understand why they entered the war and to make the connections of what events led up to that moment. If we can teach in a way that allows students to make connections rather than just memorize material then the learning of that material will be far more enduring and can be a foundation to build more connections from. For this reason concepts become more important than details, if students spend time memorizing details of the content such as names, dates, etc. then they run the risk of missing or glossing over the take home points of a lesson. Conversely if a student first has an understanding of the big picture or has a conceptual understanding of the lesson then details serve as evidence a student can attach to that concept as a validation of material they understand. One concept I didn’t necessarily agree with was that the “more or less” approach doesn’t work or shouldn’t be employed in the classroom. I’m not sure of the exact way to reach every student in the class and get them all to the same point by the end of the year. I don’t believe the answer is to allow the students who understand the material at mastery level to sit in class and become disengaged because they aren’t challenged by the material and to allow the students who don’t understand to fall behind because they can’t keep up.